I tell big, hungry stories

How Cats Change Your Relationship With Bugs [CARTOON]

This is the internet, so I have to add to the collection of posts about cats, right? I have two cats, Pagan and Keesli Moloko.

Technically, Keesli’s name is кислый молоко, which in some dialects of Russian means “yogurt” (google translate disagrees with this, but I have it on good authority from native speakers).

One thing that I noticed about living with two cats is that it has changed my relationship with bugs.

I do not feel the need to go chasing around my house with a fly swatter. I know that whatever little creature has been so foolhardy as to enter my home will be dead within hours.

My cats are both indoor-only, so the only chance they get to flex their hunting muscles is when something hunt-worthy enters their domain. They deem insects of all sorts to be quite hunt-worthy. I find this practice acceptable. I don’t even own a fly-swatter any more. I’m happy to let the circle of life win out within the confines of my walls.

The other thing I noticed recently – and in fact the day I drew these cartoons – was that I no longer reflexively kick out when something tickles my foot.

There is a reflexive response of “ew! something tickly is on my skin!” that causes us to kick and shudder and brush whatever tickling thing is there firmly away.

What I’ve learned, is that as a cat-mom, I’ve repressed that sensation until I look down to see the source of the tickling. Sometimes, what feels like an insect is actually ticklish little whiskers and a dainty nose sniffing my skin. I accidentally kicked out toward my cat once when this happened, and I’ve never healed from the trauma. (She could care less.)

I have one last cartoon here, because this is the third and final way that I’ve noticed my cats having changed my relationship with insects and arachnids in my home.

Sometimes, things get all Charlotte’s Web up in here, and instead of eating, stalking, killing, hunting and otherwise eradicating my house of their many-legged prey, my cats inexplicably make friends.

More often than not, their friends are spiders. If spiders didn’t build webs that made my house look like I never cleaned, I might leave them alone more. They, like the cats, are mini predators that keep horrible things like mosquitoes at bay. I sometimes wonder if the cats have tasted spider and found it not to their liking. Or if the spiders don’t move around enough to make them more fun than a laser pointer.

I don’t know. I just know that most of the time, I am the one that has to get rid of spiders.